Blizzard just banned over 100,000 World of Warcraft accounts in the name of stopping cheaters. But did it work?
It’s doubtful that all cheaters and botters are gone from WoW forever, but it sounds like Blizzard latest huff and puff succeeded in blowing them down. Bossland, creator of WoW’s most notorious bot, the PVP-centric Honorbuddy, admitted that they’re pretty much beat — at least, for now:
“With Honorbuddy you thought that we are unbeateable, we never thought that, we’ve succeeded since 2010 — Honorbuddy had not a single software detection. It seems there is one now.”
“We are sorry for all your lost WOW Accounts, hopefully you can use them again after the 6 months ban is lifted. I have read here in the forums a bit, a lot of the accounts where 10 years old. This is a pity. We always say, do not use your valuable accounts as the risk is always there.”
“You ask yourself what happens next? For now we closed our Honorbuddy Authentication, when we know any more details we will inform you.”
Functionally speaking, that means the bot is done for. That’s good news, given that Honorbuddy bots would often clog up PVP matches with mindless machines, ruining matches for everyone else. It was, of course, very against Blizzard’s terms of use, but Honorbuddy was a total bitch to get a bead on.
For years, Blizzard couldn’t pin it down, reliably discern between players who were employing the honour-farming automaton and folks who were actually, well, honorable. Now that they finally have, it seems Honorbuddy’s creators have no choice but to throw in the towel.
It’s all quite sad for them, but also they were wrecking PVP matches for a lot of people, so they had it coming. WoW players in the crowd, how are things going for you? Have you noticed any major changes since Blizzard tossed thousands of bots into the trash heap? Alternatively, are you a botter yourself? If so, why, and did this latest round of bans affect you?
Comments
24 responses to “World Of Warcraft Bot Maker Calls It Quits After Massive Ban Wave”
“Western accounts drop to record low 20 000 active accounts.”
Is that an actual quote from somewhere?
I doubt it, it’s not even close to accurate.
Nah I’m just making a joke on how no one plays anymore
oh people still play, if by play I mean the facebook farmville antisocial turd it’s become.
Heh. Wouldn’t be surprised. The game is lifeless. Every time I try go back to give it another chance I’m sorely reminded that what was once magical is no more.
Yeh… I still recall the old days, having to ask people in game for help and they would… (Mouth open) actually HELP YOU! Having to read quests. Maybe the occasional looking up of thottbot. The bonding with strangers devoid of elitism, none of this “gg nub flaming YOLO” crap. I wouldn’t say the world or the lore has died, but the player culture definitely did. Not saying vanilla and bc was better because it had its fair share of problems, but some of the problems were also the golden moments. Actually grouping up and riding out to an instance was great, you actually had time to build a network of people you can trust rather than the faceless pug’s you see now(of course this is from me being in uni back then, so i had heaps of time). But i agree with you, the magic is lost to me as well. T.T
Good times haha!
I went back about a month ago and was questing through the new zones. I came across 2 players chatting in the wilderness and said hello to see if they’d respond, most don’t. They told me to go f*** my mother and kill myself.
Lol.
Unfortunately there’s always been those types of people in the game even back in vanilla, people ‘remembering’ otherwise are kidding themselves.
The issue now though is there is basically no reason to have any sort of intact credibility or reputation on a server when you can just pug pretty much everything and/or change your name at will.
You can’t deny there were more helpful people back then though. But i guess as you said, the state of the game back then forced a lot of people to co-operate and interact, therefore building maybe a false sense of respect and friendship. Elitism always exists in any type of game but at the time the situation forced more people to be helpful, even those players that normally would incite trolling would grudgingly help. Technology and search engines have advanced to the point where asking for help ends up with a “google is your friend response.” I do feel sorry for those people who aren’t in a guild, because that is the only true way to roll now and any new comer is met with a stiff and cold response.
Oh please. The game had more than it’s share of jerks who had too much free time and nothing to do back then too. Most severs just had a public chat clique that you were probably a part of. It was like being a regular at a really scummy bar. You look back on it as good times and forget that people got stabbed. =P
Never did go to those scummy bars. 😛 I think i was just lucky. Never really was a public chat person, apart from a few chuck norris jokes in barrens. I was on Archimonde the first high pop pvp server back then and survived the first few weeks all good. Although there was an instance where i accidentally killed someones ogre in Alterac Mountains and got cursed with much profanity(noob tagging). But when i think about it, Wow was very new then, so not many people knew much at all. Angst felt it was more directed at Horde ganking at the time(before bg’s). By the time of BWL i do remember a lot of jerks… me included, lol.
EDIT: Now that i think about it more. I didn’t even know how to use the chat systems properly back then… so i probably wasn’t reading local chat as much as do now. Mind blown. You’ve just shattered my reality. :O
or how about when grouped up that players would actually fucking TALK.
These days all it is is 8 year olds trolling trade, gold spammers, and nothing else.
Suck shit.
Heroic progression against Blackhand, my guild’s main tank/raid leader got banned.
Things aren’t great.
One of the best guilds on my server, I’m told, lost 7-8 members of their raid team, so that’s kind of funny.
Did they all claim to have been innocent and wrongfully banned too?
That’s the greatest thing to come out of these ban waves… The cries of innocence.
Zero sympathy.
I used to do battlegrounds a LOT. Bots were one of the worst experiences in the game. And chances were that if you had a bot trend on one side, the other side would gear up and make it even harder and less desirable for the non-bot side to play/win and encourage more people to bot. The thing is that bots have been around for many, many years. I’d religiously report them, and nothing was done… until maybe now… 10 years later. It’s really a case of closing the stable doors after the horses have bolted. And chances are that someone will install some new doors soon enough.
re: It’s all quite sad for them, but also they were wrecking PVP matches for a lot of people, so they had it coming.
Sorry …. what! How is it “sad for them”? I’ve not played WoW since Cata… but how is cheating a sad event for the cheaters? I slogged pretty hard for my PvP gear, actually enjoyed a lot of PvP in the game – being mostly a PvE kinda player. But honestly, a 6 month ban is Blizzard being nice. Perma-ban all (confirmed) cheaters, and be done with them.
I was actually banned earlier this year for ‘exploiting the economy’ as Blizzard put it. Turns out leaving your VPN running while simultaneously playing WoW and Hearthstone (mobile) gets you banned. I called them and they fixed it up instantly but it was still a shock.
All those race changes, faction changes, mounts etc…. scary moment.
Last I saw Honorbuddy was actually half decent at PvP. A friend used to use it when he was busy and we’d always laugh in Vent at how it tore up the scrubs while he was marking papers or preparing lesson plans. It was never going to win against serious competition but it also never quit at the first sign of trouble. BG chat would be full of people standing around yelling ‘Alliance are terrible, we never win and it’s everyone’s fault but mine! They’re one point ahead, it’s all over!’ but there was Honorbuddy, still fighting the good fight.
Honestly….i think the game is worse now w/o the bots. theres less materials in the AH from what ive noticed. less guildies on. less friends on friends list. longer que times for BG’s. These are just things ive noticed and only my opinion. They may be cheaters of course but it never bothered me. not like a bot can beat me in a pvp situation. i would actually hope in BG there would be alot of bots on the opposing team. secured me a win
Waaaaay back in vanilla BC days – the first bots turned up, I remember the day clearly and I remember the deflation in my pleasure knowing I was playing cheats and I lost interest for 7 years.
Cheaters effect EVERYONE.
You keep all your mounts, heirlooms, pets etc, anything account-wide if you buy wow again under the same battle.net account.